For Arkansas Democrats, The Times Turn Painful

By RONALD SMOTHERS

Published: June 23, 1995

So many ill winds have blown in the last two years for public figures from Arkansas that some people in Bill Clinton's home state, particularly Democrats, have taken to wondering whether his election to the Presidency, with all the subsequent national attention on not only him but also his associates, was more curse than blessing.

"Is it over all positive for Clinton to have been elected?" said Bill Paschall, a political consultant and lobbyist who has worked on a number of Democratic campaigns in the state. "My sense is that the answer is yes. But people are asking the question. I think the people here view politics more dimly than ever."

One Democratic politician, Bobby Hogue, Speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives, said: "It's a sad time, a sad time for Arkansas. A shadow has been cast over the state, and we really don't deserve that."

The shadow began forming only a few months after Mr. Clinton's inauguration, with the suicide of the deputy White House counsel, Vincent W. Foster Jr., previously a fellow partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, the state's most influential legal establishment. Then another onetime Rose partner, Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell, resigned under fire and later pleaded guilty in an overbilling scandal at the firm.

Earlier this month, the shadow grew longer still: another Democrat, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, Mr. Clinton's successor at the Statehouse, was indicted by a Federal grand jury on charges of fraud in connection with his purchase and sale of cable television interests in 1987. The case was brought by Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, appointed to investigate the financial dealings of the President and his wife but authorized to pursue evidence of unrelated wrongdoing.

The 53-year-old Governor and his two co-defendants -- John H. Haley of Little Rock and William J. Marks of San Francisco -- were arraigned in Little Rock yesterday, and all pleaded not guilty; trial was scheduled for Aug. 30.

Outside the Federal courthouse afterward, Mr. Tucker, who had previously denounced Mr. Starr's prosecution as one "filled with deliberate partisan zeal," declared that the independent counsel, a longtime Republican, had ambitions to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court by the next Republican President and that "this is his ticket to that higher appointment."

Some here agree, describing Mr. Starr as an overzealous prosecutor who does not seem to know the difference between double parking and first-degree murder.

"Some people see this as unfair piling on," said State Representative Wayne Dowd, a Democrat. "People believe that Mr. Starr has spent a lot of money, and, therefore, he has to have a scalp to hang on a stick. And if he can't get President Clinton, then Governor Tucker is the next best thing."

Last weekend, at a Little Rock gathering of several hundred lawyers attending legal-education seminars, support for the Governor was abundant: in a routine appearance, he drew prolonged applause and a standing ovation.

But the indictment may have jeopardized Mr. Tucker's ambitious legislative agenda. The Governor this year has proposed politically delicate revisions of the State Constitution; a $5 billion highway bond issue, rare for a state that has traditionally resisted borrowing for capital projects, and a school financing measure to replace a system that, the courts have said, unconstitutionally handicaps poor districts.

"The program has incredible sweep and vision," said Cal Ledbetter, a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, who noted that none of those proposals were popular with the voters. "It really takes courage and determination to do what he wants to do. It was already an uphill battle, and this indictment is just going to make it steeper."

Indeed, one Republican State Senator, Bill Walters, said the indictment had changed the timing and the entire political dynamics of constitutional reform.

The reason has partly to do with state law regarding succession: a criminal conviction would automatically remove Governor Tucker from office (although there is some question whether he could stay on until his appeals were resolved). Waiting in the wings to move up to the governorship is a Republican, Lieut. Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who has occasionally aligned himself with the religious right.

And where Mr. Tucker's proposed constitutional overhaul focuses on administrative and legislative streamlining, the Republicans, who are in the minority in both the House and the Senate, are interested in getting social issues like abortion and school prayer into the overhaul debate.

"If he is found guilty," Senator Walters said of Mr. Tucker, "we would have to take a whole new look, and the question is whether Mike Huckabee would want to proceed differently."

"Gloating," said Marty Ryall, executive director of the Arkansas Republican Party, "is certainly the wrong tack to take on this, and Governor Tucker is innocent until proven guilty." But, Mr. Ryall added, "I would say it's all positive for the G.O.P. in Arkansas."

Photo: After his arraignment in Little Rock yesterday, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, accompanied by his wife, Betty, declared that the Whitewater prosecutor was motivated by a desire to be appointed to the Supreme Court.